Medical

Healthcare is moving out of the hospital and into doctors’ surgeries and the home, driven by reduced costs, improved patient outcomes, and convenience. Medical devices that were once heavy and fixed are now small and portable – and increasingly wearable. With its combination of performance, silent operation and size, the multi award-winning Disc Pump™ from TTP Ventus is enabling manufacturers to respond to this trend with smaller, lighter, quieter products.

Portability
Portability is a growing requirement for patient monitoring and therapy systems. Product designers need to simplify pneumatic systems, reducing component count and complexity in order to meet ever-tighter space constraints. Attention also focuses on the pump itself, with weight and size being frequent issues. Disc Pump™ weighs just 5 g (1/5 oz) and occupies a volume of only 7 cm3 (less than ½ a cubic inch) – all while delivering the pneumatic performance of a motor-driven diaphragm pump. The resulting product design freedom enables completely new product forms.

Discrete Operation
As medical products move into quieter environments – the home, a doctor’s surgery, or a care-home for example – quiet operation becomes increasingly important. While present hospital noise levels are a cause for concern, patients generally experience them for a relatively limited period while they require acute care. However portable and home-based devices are often used over long periods of time and in situations where there is little or no background noise. Product developers are therefore turning to Disc Pump’s silent, vibration-free operation to deliver truly discrete products.

Wearability
Wearable devices combine the requirements of portability and discretion. For example, sleep apnoea sufferers don’t want their sleep interrupted by their therapy device, and patients prescribed a 24 hour blood-pressure monitor don’t want its operation to interrupt a meeting.